Training builds momentum for Sudan’s climate change response

(Khartoum, 25 November 2011) - As part of Sudan’s progress towards establishing a climate change National Adaptation Plan by June 2013, representatives from all 15 states have this week participated in a capacity building workshop in Khartoum.

The three-day workshop was staged by the Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR), with support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and focused on practical training to enable Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessments to begin immediately at the state and locality level.

UNEP is supporting the Higher Council to implement a major climate change project aimed at preparing the country’s Second National Communication under the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change.

Since the project began earlier this year, the HCENR has established a project secretariat and identified a four-person national technical team to oversee the detailed vulnerability and adaptation assessments which form the foundation of Sudan’s National Adaptation Plan.

In addition, one person has been identified as a focal point in each of the 15 states. They have now each established a three-person technical team of sectoral experts from the agriculture, health and water departments who will assist the national team with data collection.

Speaking at the workshop’s opening session on Monday, the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Physical Development, Mr Maboruk Mabruk Sleem, said the government was committed to implementing the national project to meet the climate change challenge.

Also among the 60 participants at the workshop were: the HCENR-Secretary General, Dr Saadeldin Ibrahim; UNEP’s Sudan Programme Manager, Mr Robin Bovey; and the national Project Coordinator, Mr Ismail Elgizouli.

Robin Bovey said UNEP would continue supporting Sudan’s governmental institutions to maintain the momentum with a range of activities within all seven themes of the climate change project, including “hotspot” mapping, assessing coastal zone vulnerability to climate change and “climate-proofing” programmes.

The workshop took place from 20-22 November, a week before the world’s governments will gather in Durban, South Africa, for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 17). Dr Mey Eltayeb Ahmed, the climate change focal point for the UNEP Sudan team, will support Sudan’s delegation at the COP.

The UNEP project is being funded by UKaid from the Department for International Development.

Workshops on Integrated Water Resources Management and Climate Change also took place in Darfur, Sudan, this month jointly staged by UNEP, the Groundwater and Wadis Department of the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources and UNICEF.

In addition, through a partnership between UNEP and the European Union, Minister Maboruk Mabruk Sleem and Sudan’s Minister of Finance took part in a regional workshop on ‘Mainstreaming Climate Change into National Development Planning’, organized by the European Union in Nairobi from 15-17 November.